Wednesday, August 19, 2015

HOME FROM HOLIDAY

Holidays are for people who want to get away from where they
are or from what they do when they're not on holiday. Since I don't
usually want to get away or to stop whatever I'm doing, holidays are not
really my thing. But this was a late celebration of my sister's
significant birthday a couple of months ago so we met up in a place she
knows and loves and where I've never been.

Vezelay,
in Burgundy, a tiny village with a troubled medieval history, the
whole of which was enacted by the townsfolk themselves, in period
costume, in a full son et lumiere
performance (visually impressive but verbally too long to endure). The
village consists of one steep uphill street with a scattering of
atmospheric shops and restaurants, a small but perfectly designed
museum which houses the Zervos collection of modern art, and at the top of the slope, the legendary St. Marie Madeleine Romanesque abbey,
unbelievably serene in spite of its violent buried past. The
Vezelay hillside is planted with heavy dusty pink stone walls and ochre
red roofs like some kind of indestructible vegetation.

Below, Sylvie von Segebade-Marty at her house near Vezelay. I
met her at the Paris Salon du Livre last March, she came to my stand,
bought the Trans-Siberian book and we spoke for about ten minutes,
became friends for life. She is an extraordinary person. Thanks to
Sylvie we met another extraordinary person: Pierre Etienne Breguet, and
re-connected with yet another extraordinary person, Jean-Claude Bel,
whom my sister had met on one of her previous visits. Vezelay is the
kind of place where such connections happen. I trust we'll stay
connected with them all.

Blinking in the birthday sun, reflected in the hotel room window, c'est moi on 7th August 2015, Vezelay.

One more thing to pack into this post: before I went on
holiday I made a photobook from pics of some of my books and boxes, a
partial catalogue. It arrived when I got back home and I am very pleased
with it. Here you can flip through it online (best on full screen).

11 comments:

I am intrigued by the phrase "became friends for life". Such confidence. No possibility of your ever falling out; as if you had befriended yourself. But there I go, picking again. I am indeed tempted by permanence, seeing it as a scab.

Robbie, I know quite a lot about very few things and wine isn't one of them. There were indeed several local viniculture shops on that one very high street and had I but the cash (especially the cash) temerity, muscles and time, I might have wobbled downhill and onto Eurostar carrying a few of those sonorous labels to further my education with. But the abbey bells were pleasingly sonorous, if not so effective. Anyway I'm a very bad reporter but I did notice those medieval beetles.

As for instant lifelong friendship, of course it's an exaggeration and of course, at a distance, anything is possible. I was born an optimist and life hasn't convinced me that the (wine) glass is not just half full but empty.

Ah Vezelay, and the crusades! So much of France seems to have emerged from the earth and is in the process of collapsing back into the ground. The French people do not seem to feel the same respect for their architecture as do others - like the Brits, for example. Yet that seems to give old French towns a certain charm that I like. However, I do seem to be aware of the sense of violence, the memories of which the earth cannot quite erase. A lovely journey through your recent holiday. Thank you and welcome home again.

Jean, the pilgrim connection is very much in evidence - groups of backpackers and scouts on their way to Santiago, and also lots of 'spiritual tourists' absorbed in legends of lost relics, secret codes (always secret) and ancient answers to eternal questions. The soulful bookshop overflows with them, accompanied by appropriate music and scents. All very pleasant and peaceful but not, to me, conducive to any form of "AHA!"

Bruce, those insects in their designer uniforms awed and astonished me. I'm still waiting for somebody to tell me about them.I'm glad you were transfixed by my catalogue - transfixion is a great compliment!

Tom, it's true, violent history doesn't lie quietly under the earth, even when a beautiful landscape has grown over it. Disturbing to dwell on that thought. But the architecture in Vezelay is carefully preserved - even in surrounding villages, new owners of old houses are not allowed to change their character.Thanks, I'm glad to be home.

Some kind of shield bugs, I think, beyond that not sure, I'll look them up. I remember wondering at them the first time I really went exploring in France when I was about 19, I've always peered at the small stuff.

A certain shabbiness of buildings works better in more southerly places, out here on the damp fringes it quickly becomes squalid. Must explore Burgundy.

OK, turns out they're pyrrhocoris apterus, fire bugs, but also known as gendarmes in English and French, and soldats in French! The adults are the ones with the smart circles, the solid red ones are the nymphs - they don't come as larvae as such. They often congregate on lime tree trunks - where I most remember seeing them - on the sunny side (they're also called 'cherche-midi!), not sure why except they do eat lime tree seeds sometimes. They're very widespread, mostly continental Europe but no unknown in the UK and elsewhere.

Lucy, thank you! You're a mine of erudite information - I didn't even know how to look them up. I was fascinated by their stunning uniforms - never saw any gendarmes or soldiers dressed as gorgeously! It's surprising that some fasion designers haven't been inspired by these little beasts.